probably too high to be useful

was doing some random placebo surfing, and came across a page google summarized as:
"36 degrees - probably too high to be useful"

unfortunately the reference was to a compilation album of ascending numbers. that was a bit boring :)

hills hurt

it was rather bizarre catching the 8:30am s-bahn from zürich hb with 400 other runners on saturday morning. i, however, was mostly incredibly relieved to actually be on board, after getting briefly but completely lost trying to find the distractingly simply named 'platform 1'. being swiss, there wasn't so much friendly banter going on amongst the punters, but there was a certain feeling of early morning pre-race camaraderie in the air as we queued patiently for the gondola up to our start.

the sola is incredibly simple, pure and elegantly organised. perfectly captured from the swedes by the swiss. 15 runners per team, 600 teams, a continuous day-long running relay circling the (hilly) forest in and around zürich. and of course never an organisational mistake.

as said, mine was the superfun 14km leg around the backside of the uetliberg. the first 4km were smooth downhill brilliance, and i was cruising at 3:30s. then came a short very sharp climb that really knocked me about. i was almost getting things back together when the second big hill hit at 10km. ouch. luckily the 3km home was more sweet downhill firetrail. running fast is so much fun! if only i had had the strength on the uphills as well.

some power-napping brought me back to life for the relaxed bbq at microbiology in the evening (good for some well-deserved teammate back-slapping and congratulations), which was a good warmup for the sola party in at eth zentrum. farnoush and i made the most of the sleepy live band and the only dance option, the 'latin' room, but definitely enjoyed the smokefree atmosphere - yay for sporty types!

all psyched for sola

which is all day long tomorrow. what's not so good is that since i'm running the 5th leg, and it starts way down south of zürich, i'm going to have to be out of bed in the morning on a saturday. hmmm. sleep vs racing. it's a tough call. but microbiology is putting on free beers for the team tomorrow night, so i think that could possibly pull me out of bed in the morning in time to make it to the start.

i've got some old skool 1991 red hot chili peppers on at the moment, and they are totally da man. not quite the rock sex god brian, but damn funkay. (i love brian though, so it's pretty tough competition).

it's not that bad after all

so sajid actually got his visa today! apparently it was his swiss professor's rather frank conversation with embassy officials that sped the process up from a month to just over the weekend. it's kind of like 1 hour photo developing. sometimes when you went to pick up a roll they hadn't even started being developed, and yet still managed to be ready in less than 5 minutes. thank goodness for digital cameras.

in the final weeks of preparation for the sola relay next weekend, greg and i went for a 14km 'time trial' this afternoon. (i get to do the nice looking 14km 5th leg in the microbiology institute's team) the idea was to get a feel for pushing the pace, since it's been too long since either of us had raced. ouch. the first 5km was fun in just under 20min, we eased up a bit through the middle, and tried to bring it home strongly. i felt rather pathetic finishing up a very marginal hill, but 57:50's not so bad. put me in a proper race situation next weekend and i'll eat the miles up :)

never trust an indian

...is what the u.s. government is seeming to preach at the moment.

in a monumentally unfair situation, sajid hussain, husband of my lab-buddy saba, won't be issued an entrance visa to the u.s. to let him present his phd work in a speech at the largest cancer conference in the world in anaheim week after next. 3 months ago he applied for a visa, but was told applications were only accepted 90 days before travel. so 90 days later his papers were in. but now the embassy in bern has said that his application has only just been sent to washington, and that they severely doubt it will be accepted in time for the conference. since you have to give a conference organiser a week's notice to not turn up as a speaker, that pretty much closes the door for sajid.

why? because he's an indian, and the u.s. is afraid indian/chinese spies will steal the secrets to american technological supremecy? because his last name is hussain? either way, this sort of shit is so 20th century geopolitics dressed up as 'national security'. i hope countries that practise exclusionism realise what they're doing before they die a fearful and stagnant death.

poo

zürich is a fantastic place sometimes. where else can you get a free tour of the sewerage system, complete with funky orange overalls, thigh-high rubber boots, friendly rats and freshly flushed crap? i can think of many places where you could get the individual parts, but getting the whole smörgåsbord at once is a bit of a treat!

some friends of reto had organised the tour (you just need more than 10 people to get a free booking with the zürich sewage treatment plant!) so he, martin and i trepidatiously tagged along for a long lunch. after getting changed into the super-funky gear, we caught a special bus almost into the centre of town. waving to the kiddies skipping school while wearing our special quasi-firemen outfits was a treat all in itself. then it was down a manhole on the side of a stock-standard street, and a 500m wander downstream. i was last in line, and there was a cute friendly rat tailing us for a bit. i felt a bit sad though, since there's no way out of there, even for a crafty rat, except for when the next rain big comes... he seemed quite happy sipping at the turbid wastes flowing past and frollicking in the sporadic explosions from minor side tunnels though. mmmmm.

fresh air has rarely tasted so good as upon my emergence from that dark underworld. and to think whenever there are houses around, those tunnels are below us all the time...

goodbye :(

4 people left the aebi group yesterday, which is a pretty big hit for a group of about 20. patricie was my closest supervisor too, and was great fun to have as a lab buddy. she's off to start in a permanent position at the university hospital zürich, so at least she's close by if i'm desperate for some yeast help! mitch was always an impressive scientist and personality, and has leapt into his own start-up company. good luck! christina is only moving across to the nextdoor building, so i'm sure we'll see her round a bit. and marcela is moving to a company. i will really miss her smiley cheerful presence.

we had a great farewell apero last night, so i wasn't too keen on getting up in time for today's practicum, where i had to supervise a group of 2nd year biology students in their first ever microbiology practical course! my group was nice and friendly though, and luckily the most taxing part of the course was only making yoghurt and sauerkraut :)